Board of Directors

T.R. Reid — Chair

T. R. Reid has become one of the nation’s best-known reporters through his coverage of global affairs for The Washington Post, his books and documentary films, and his lighthearted commentaries on National Public Radio. Reid majored in Classics at Princeton University, and served as a naval officer, a teacher, and in various other jobs. At the Washington Post, he covered Congress and four presidential campaigns. He served as the paper’s bureau chief in Tokyo and in London. Reid has written seven books in English and three in Japanese, including the bestselling “The Healing of America: A Global Search for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.” He has written and hosted documentary films for National Geographic TV, for PBS, and for the A&E network. His latest film, “U.S. Health Care: The Good News,” premiered on the PBS network in February 2012. Reid is also Board Chair of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and serves on the boards of the Japan-America Society of Colorado and the Health Research and Educational Trust. He has taught at Princeton University and the University of Michigan.

State Sen. Jeanne Nicholson, RN, MS — Vice Chair

Former state Sen. Jeanne Nicholson, RN, MS brings to the board her expertise as a Masters-prepared public health nurse in rural and urban Colorado from 1965 to 2002. She has promoted access to affordable, high-quality health care throughout her prestigious career.
Subsequent to her nursing career, Sen. Nicholson served eight years as a Gilpin County commissioner and four years as a state senator. She served on the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. She has also served as President of the Colorado County Nurses Association, President of the Colorado Public Health Association, Chair of the Gilpin County Board of Health, and on the board of directors for Colorado Counties, Inc., among many other positions in public life. She has taught at both the University of Colorado School of Nursing and Regis School of Nursing.

Jed S. Shapiro, MD — Secretary

Jed Shapiro is a board certified psychiatrist who has worked at Boulder Mental Health Center for the past 36 years in many capacities. He also practiced at Boulder Developmental Disabilities, now known as Imagine!, for the past 6 years. In addition to maintaining a small private practice. Dr. Shapiro has been on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit Family Resource Center (dba Access Counseling Center) from 1978 until 2009, serving as president twice. He recalls that he has been interested in public health since shadowing his father, a pediatrician, in the 1960’s as director of the Child Hygiene Division of the Newark, New Jersey, Public Health Department. A long-term proponent of improving access to health care, he spent 3 months in 1972 studying health care delivery issues at the National Institute of Public Health in Belgrade Yugoslavia on a PL480 grant. Health care activities include:
President and Board member, Family Resource Center
Board Treasurer, Balanced Choice Health Care, Inc.

Laurie Fowler-Beckel, MA, LPC

Laurie has more than 30 years’ experience in early-childhood and family issues. Her recent concentration has been the development of High Fidelity Wraparound initiatives for such institutions as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (www.yfti.pa.org) and several projects in Colorado. Laurie worked for the nationally recognized consulting firm of Vroon VanDenBerg for seven years on contracts in eight states and two Canadian Provinces.

A CU graduate from the Health Sciences Center (physicians’ assistant) with over 20 years in the Colorado mental health system as an early childhood therapist, program director, and service manager, has contributed to Laurie’s passion and commitment to affordable, quality, accessible health care for everyone.

Thomas W. Bost, M.D.

Tom Bost, M.D. has certifications from the American Boards of Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care Medicine. Currently in private practice in Denver, he has held faculty positions at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and contributed to numerous publications in medical journals. The father of a severely disabled daughter, Tom has first-hand experience with the associated challenges and rewards. Health care activities include:

Melvin Bush founded Insurance Design & Placement in St. Louis, Miss., in 1979 after attending St. Louis University’s Graduate Business School, where he also received is Bachelor’s of Science degree in Finance. He relocated the firm to Denver, where IDS has grown to provide risk management for clients in a variety of industries including hospitality and tourism, agriculture, property management, technology and group health.

Mr. Bush is also a graduate of the African American Leadership Institute’s class of 1996 and the Denver Metro Chamber Foundation’s Leadership Denver Class of 2006. He has contributed his time in service extensively, serving as President of the Ronald McDonald House Charities, on the board of the Women’s Bean Project, on the Colorado Foundation for Public Health and Environment, the Adams County Community Service Board, among many others.

Jeanne “Gigi” Darricades, M.P.H., J.D.

As President/Chief Executive Officer of Valley-Wide Health Systems, Inc., Jeanne “Gigi” Darricades, M.P. H., J.D. ensures that more than 30,000 patients across southern Colorado, including the medically under-served, receive comprehensive community-based health care. Before taking the helm of Valley-Wide Health Systems, Inc. in 2011, she served as an attorney specializing in health care law, business law, nonprofit law, and conservation law from 1992 to 2011 in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Darricades also served as the Director of Medical Affairs, Director of Case-Mix, and Special Projects Coordinator for Intermountain Health Care, Inc.; and as a hospital administrator in New Mexico. Before earning her law degree from the University of Utah School of Law, she earned her Master of Public Health from University of California Berkeley. (She also completed her undergraduate work at Berkeley in political science.) Darricades serves on several boards and appointed positions, including: the Medicaid Provider Rate Advisory Committee (Appointed in 2015 for a four-year term); Colorado Community Health Network (CCHN) as a Board member, Chairperson of Public Affairs Committee, and Chairperson of the Strategic Workforce Committee; on the Colorado Community Managed Care Network (Board Member 2011 to Present); and for San Luis Valley Federal Bank (Board Member 2011 to Present).

Diane Dunn, BSW, MBA, PMP

Diane Dunn, a Health IT Consultant, started her career as a social worker in Boulder County. Her experience with the elderly, disabled, vulnerable adults, as well as abused and neglected children reinforced her desire to help those who are least able to help themselves. She served for 25 years with the State Department of Social Services, which later became the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), working on health care policy—particularly in the area of long term care—as well as in budget, data, and information systems. As a business analyst with an expertise in federal reporting, Dunn assured that the Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) processed claims and reimbursements correctly. Her last years at HCPF saw her managing the technical side of the MMIS.

After leaving MMIS in 2010, she worked as a Health IT Consultant with projects in Arkansas, Illinois, and Missouri. Most recently, Dunn worked on the Health Insurance Marketplace design, development, and implementation for Connect for Health Colorado. She has an MBA and holds a professional certification in Project Management. Dunn is very excited to bring her experience to the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care board.

Mark K. Matthews, MD, FACP

Mark K. Matthews, MD, FACP is a practicing internist for the Colorado Permanente Medical Group and an advocate nationally and regionally for a health care system that is patient-centered and primary care-based. As a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, he’s serves as Chair of the Health and Public Policy committee and represented the Colorado chapter of the ACP on the Colorado Medical Society’s Physician Congress for Health Reform. He is a longtime supporter of universal health care.

After graduating from Georgetown University School of Medicine and a residency at Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, Dr. Matthews served two years as a Commissioned Officer for the United States Public Health Service. His civic contributions have benefited Cub Scouts of America and the Healing the Children Association. He is the Colorado ACP’s Laureate Award recipient for 2015, an award formerly called the Distinguished Internist Award. Dr. Matthews lives in Littleton with his wife of 37 years, Ellyn. They have four grown children and two grandchildren.

Ashley Miller, BSN, RN

Ashley Miller, BSN, RN, is a graduate nursing student in Denver, Colorado with experience in cardiology and internal medicine. She started her nursing career in Albany and New York City, New York, and she currently works part-time as a float nurse. She is working on her MSN in nursing education. Ashley believes that intrigue inspires passion, and that leading change begins with a bold heart. Nurses have that.She is a natural-born teacher and a brave lil’ rascal who is on a mission to feed the intrigue as a writer and new co-host for RNFM Radio 4.0.

Ralph Ogden

Attorney Ralph Ogden argued over 200 appeals in state and federal courts and wrote a quarterly column on workers’ compensation issues for the Colorado Bar Association Journal from 1993 until his semi-retirement in 2012. He represented Becky Brinkman and Margaret Burd in Brinkman v. Long, the Adams County, Colorado, same-gender marriage case which resulted in a judicial declaration that Colorado’s ban on same gender marriages violated the Fourteenth Amendment. He was the volunteer chair of the committee that drafted Amendment 69, the proposed ColoradoCare 2016 amendment to the Colorado Constitution, and served as senior legal counsel for the ColoradoCare campaign committee.

Internationally, Ogden has taught lay public defenders in Cambodia, served as long- and medium-term election monitors for the Asia Foundation in Cambodia and the Carter Center in Guyana, has been a U.S. Agency for International Development consultant to the Supreme Court of Afghanistan in parts of 2004 and 2005. He investigated Serbian war crimes in Kosovo, and has worked with former political prisoners in Myanmar, where he also started a girls’ athletic program at a monastery orphanage. He is president of Technology Partnership, which provides refurbished computers to schools in Meru, Kenya, and trains teachers in their use. He serves on the board of directors of the International Peace Initiatives, which operates an orphanage, a woman’s empowerment center, and vocational training programs for teenage mothers, also in Meru. He’s the foster father to five Kenyan children, two of whom attend university.

He’s a member of the International and American Associations of Political Consultants; the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association; the Colorado and Denver Bar Associations; the Colorado GLBT Bar Association; and the Society of Professional Journalists. He chairs the international committee and is president-elect nominee for the Denver Tech Center Rotary Club.

Ralph and his wife, Anne, have hosted exchange students from China, Israel and Palestine, Chile, Argentina, Iraq, and Kurdistan. They have three children and three grandchildren.

William Semple, LCSW

Bill Semple, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, has treated clients for over 20 years in a non-profit community mental health center, gaining a profound appreciation for the strengths of a systems approach to health care. For the past 10 years he has been in private practice, and because of his commitment to providing insurance-based health care, he experiences the fractured nature of the reimbursement systems with all their complexities, inadequacies, and gaps. As a provider he has become dedicated to being a part of creating an efficient, single, publicly accountable approach to how we pay for care, so the focus can be on quality of care which is inclusive and affordable to all. Health care activities include:

President, Cooperate Colorado
Board Member, Coalition for Colorado Universal Health Care
Former member, Citizens Review Board, Boulder Country Health and Human Services
Former Chair, Professional Advisory Board, Mental Health Center of Boulder County
Former Board Member, Community of Sudanese and American Women/Men

2 Responses to Board of Directors

I am happy to see that there are several mental health providers on the Board; however, there are a couple of designations missing which I strongly believe should be included. There is an LCSW mental health provider, but no LPC or LMFT, and we account for more licensed, practicing mental health providers in Colorado than LCSWs, Ph.Ds or Psy.D, based on my estimate, which I arrived at by eyeballing the Access Behavioral Care provider pages. This may be only a rough estimate, but it does indicate that a couple of types of providers were overlooked when the Board was formed. I think this is an excellent idea (Colorado’s own version of the Affordable Care Act), but I think it should be more representative in the mental health area. Thank you for your consideration of this, and hope to hear more about your Foundation.

According to your colleague, Dr. Jill Stein, M.D., three quarters of the national, annual health care bill $2.25 TRILLION could be eliminated if full implementation of real preventive medicine, starting with Industrial Hygiene.